I appeal to you as an artist, participant of the 1st Manifesta, European Biennale of contemporary art (1996, Rotterdam) and as native of Ukraine. It seems, the situation does not need extended explanation. My country experienced the cynic impertinent military aggression from Putin’s regime in Russia. Clearly St. Petersburg is a marvellous city and the Hermitage is one of the most famous museums around the world. Nevertheless, the organisers made the mistaken decision to hold Manifesta 10 (2014) in a country where freedom of art expression is repressed, where imperial chauvinism and obscurantism are raised to state ideology. Today such a decision looks shameful. I call on you to support the people of Ukraine in their hard struggle for independence and their future. I appeal to the international art community: BOYCOTT MANIFESTA 10 IN ST. PETERSBURG!

On March 1, 2014 the Russian Parliament authorized the use of military force in Ukraine. Russia’s intervention in Ukraine disregards all international norms and, especially, the “Budapest Memorandum on Security Assurances” signed on December 5, 1994, when newly independent Ukraine gave up its arsenal of nuclear weapons. Russia, the United States and the United Kingdom pledged to respect Ukraine’s territorial integrity; therefore this appeal is addressed primarily to the art communities of these countries.

When your government does not fulfil the international obligations it has accepted, can you still consider that you live and work in a lawful, civilized and humanitarian state?

Russia’s aggressive actions look like revenge for the Ukrainian people’s insistence on choosing Europe and ousting their dictatorial president, a choice that cost a hundred lives. Today Russia is an aggressor-state where culture is either forced to serve imperial propaganda or persecuted.

We call on you to actively denounce the imperial aggression of V.V. Putin, thus promoting the preservation of Ukraine’s territorial integrity and, accordingly, peace in Europe.

We not only encourage your free choice of method in impacting your own national government, but insist on applying uncompromising pressure on the government of the state-aggressor. We also ask you to inform your country’s leadership and population – using all available means – about what has happened and is still happening in Ukraine. In this, we promise to offer whatever assistance we can.

On February 23, 2014 in the building of the Ministry of Culture of Ukraine in Kiev, a meeting of over 200 civic activists, cultural workers and artists created the Assembly for Culture in Ukraine, which has taken control of the state organ for cultural policy. From this moment, cultural activists will initiate and develop strategic reforms in the cultural sphere. The Assembly has been occupying the building since February 22 and will not leave until a commission begins an investigation, audit and systemic analysis of the previous activities of the Ministry of Culture. The Assembly demands the enactment of lustration laws for officials of the Ministry of Culture and that the new Minister be approved by the Assembly before appointment. The group has initiated the formation of expert committees in various areas of art, culture and cultural heritage to articulate proposals for introducing systemic reforms.